Barry and Gretchen Draper were our honored guests recently, topping off our literacy study of nature.  Since they have traveled around the world to many of the different rainforests, they were able to share magnificent information about many things we were still curious about after reading our last literature selection, The Great Kapok Tree.  We found them irresistible in their energy, their generosity, their humor, and their bountiful brains.

*Mackenzie:  I enjoyed that the Drapers showed us tons of pictures of the rainforest, and there was a huge, furry, black, scary, long-legged spider in one!

*Madi:  It grabbed me to see those weird bugs, like the huge earthworm Mr. Draper was holding in his hands!

*James:  The Drapers have been to a lot of rainforests in the world, and I enjoyed the pictures of the jaguar, the poison dart frog, and the  “serpiente” the most.

*Tobie:  There are tons of different animals in the rain forest, and I never knew before that there are pink dolphins in the Amazon.

*Mrs. D.:  They were extremely knowledgeable—very professional.  Having someone here who had personally experienced the rain forest was wonderful.

*Jesse:  We learned about monkeys, snakes, and bugs.

*Alex:  We saw some very cool pictures of birds, reptiles, and insects, and I especially liked the one of the rhinoceros beetle.

*Collin:  There are weird kinds of animals in the rainforest, such as tarantulas and a huge snake that they found on their roof.

*Miss Blessing:  Mr. Draper could bend his long body into the shape of some of the unusual creatures he was describing.  I couldn’t take my eyes off him!

*Kearsis:  I never knew that there were pink dolphins in the rain forest before.

*Brandon:  I learned that there are a lot of animals I didn’t know before, very different from NH animals.

*Dylan:  They were really interesting speakers, and their pictures of insects and animals were cool.  One of my favorite ones was the tarantula about to eat a beetle.

*Kiara:  I really wondered how they actually slept in that cabin knowing that there were a bunch of snakes and tarantulas and scorpions in there!  Shiver!